


Any Other Way

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: Smart People [9]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Bad Relationship, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:12:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3291542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Becker's past drops in for a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Other Way

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Luka for a speedy beta. *g* Title is as usual me subjecting you to my hit and miss musical taste: Laserlight, Jessie J - you make me feel good, you make me feel safe/you know I wouldn’t have it any other way.

            CMU was used to strangers, to people who looked like they didn’t belong. It had an unusually high proportion of mature students, and the faculty were all deranged (see Cutter the Nutter, Evolutionary Zoology). It was used to confusing Miss Brown in Quality Assurance with her glossier half-sister in PR, and enlightening new students who couldn’t work out why half the trainee nurses disappeared into military slang and horror stories at the first opportunity.

 

            Niall Richards was not used to people who looked like they didn’t belong. He liked people to pigeonhole themselves neatly, and mostly they did, in any one of a few simple categories: students, lecturers, admin staff, cleaning staff. If they did that, he knew how to react to them, and if not – well, he knew how to react in that case too. The tall, baby-faced man with greying hair loitering outside a door did not fit into any of the categories, and true to form, Niall was instantly suspicious and annoyed.          

 

            “Sorry, can you let me in?” the stranger asked.

 

            “No,” Niall said, eyeing his giant, old-fashioned umbrella with disdain. Niall considered the recent rain nothing more than a slight shower, and hadn’t deigned to do more than turn up the collar of his coat.

 

            The stranger looked moderately surprised. “Why?”

 

            “Security,” Niall said, and didn’t bother elaborating.

 

            “I’m looking for someone who works here, um – Alexander? Alexander Becker?”

 

            “Don’t know him,” Niall said, which was strictly accurate. He had never met an Alexander Becker. He had bumped into _Hilary_ Becker once or twice, but that was a different matter.

 

            “He would be the librarian?” the stranger tried.

 

            Niall just shrugged. “You’re in my way.”

 

            The stranger took offence. “I’m sorry? I was asking you a perfectly reasonable question, and –”

 

            “It was a statement of fact. _You’re in my way_.”

 

            Maybe it was something in his tone, maybe it was something in his eyes, but the stranger made a strangled noise and gave way. Niall brushed his university card against the reader, let himself in, and made sure to draw the door closed behind him, with a swish and a snick as the lock connected.

 

            There was a squawked swear word, muffled by the thick glass. Niall smirked.

 

***

 

            Tom Ryan sighed, and eyed the pile of paperwork in front of him; he hated to put things off, and having set aside today for doing the work it galled him to just let it go by. But he’d been fully occupied all morning and most of the afternoon – a routine security briefing, threatening letters posted to Dr Wickes, a contretemps between Stephen Hart and Dr Cutter that had ended with Hart fleeing his office and hiding in Miss Page’s little cubbyhole – and the temptation to call it a day was overwhelming.

 

            There was a knock on his door. “Come in!” he shouted, and the door swung open. Behind it loomed Niall Richards, an engineering researcher and one of Ryan’s favourite members of staff, for the very simple reason that every time a clueless fresher mistook him for a mugger, Richards turned up at the security office to vouch for himself and his whereabouts of his own free will. It spared Ryan a lot of trouble.

 

            Richards was also the perfect totally legitimate excuse not to touch the paperwork on his desk quite yet, but Ryan glossed over that one mentally.

 

            “Problem?” he enquired hospitably. It could be anything with Richards; generally speaking it was a simple case of mistaken mugger identity, but last time it had been anonymous love letters. Handling those amused Ryan much more than dealing with more usual hate mail, even if it had turned out to be a piss-take from a former classmate of Richards’, now (of all things) a trainee nurse.

 

            Richards shrugged. “Might be. Might not be. There’s a bloke lurking around the door by the admin offices, pestering people to let him in. Tallish. Grey hair. Only looks about thirty, though. Dressed in a suit jacket and jeans. Claims to be looking for an Alexander Becker who’s the librarian.”

 

            Ryan frowned. “The librarian’s name is Hilary.”

 

            Richards nodded.

           

            Ryan sat back in his chair. “Hmm.” He thought of something. “What were you doing by the admin offices, Niall?”

 

            Richards almost hesitated. “Looking for a working photocopier.”

 

            Subtext: absolutely nothing to do with Jenny Lewis. If that was the case, Ryan would eat his boots. “Right.” He made a note of the sighting. “Did you get the guy’s name?”

 

            Richards shook his head.

 

            “Thanks anyway.” Ryan stood. “I’ll go and have a quick look, and I’ll put a general alert out.”

 

            When he made it down to the door Richards had referred to, the man with grey hair was gone, and it was getting dark. It had stopped raining, though. Ryan stuck his hands into capacious pockets, frowned, and took a quick stroll around the block, just in case Richards’s new friend popped into view.

 

            Ryan dropped past the library on his way back to his office, but Becker was gone: a scruffy, dark-haired student volunteered the information that he’d left the library with a tall dark woman only a few minutes previously. Ryan recognised Sarah Page from the description, and stopped worrying. He took James out to supper instead.

 

***

 

            “Sarah?” Becker said, appearing over her shoulder and making her shriek.

 

            Becker rolled his eyes, and a couple of students stifled giggles. He forgave them, on the grounds that they were deep in their dissertations and needed something to lighten up their lives, poor things. “ _Sarah_.”

 

            “Sorry, sorry, sorry, quiet in the library I _know_ ,” she said in an anguished sort of hiss, “but you crept up on me!”

 

            “I did not,” Becker said, insulted.

 

            “Did so,” Sarah grinned, scooping up her notes. “Did you want something?”  


            “I want to know if you want to take those books out or not,” he said patiently. “Because it’s half-five, and I want to go home.”

 

            “Okay, fine.” Sarah lifted the heaviest of the three. “Just this one, thanks. I’m done with the other two.”

 

            “Can you take your Post-It notes out then, please?” Becker said, sparing a glance for the other two, which both contained a small forest’s worth of yellow slips of paper. “Are you footnoting or something?”

 

            “Yes – no – sort of,” Sarah said confusedly. “Cross-referencing mostly. Dotting i’s and crossing t’s. I am forbidden to find new angles to put in my thesis, my supervisor says so.”

 

            Becker hid a grin. “Give me your card. I’ll take this out for you. You work on taking your notes out of my books.”

 

            Sarah fidgeted around with her Post-It notes, and Becker carried the books to the front desk and checked them out on Sarah’s account, carefully smiling past pretty, unfortunately mistaken Jess Parker so she didn’t try to engage him in conversation. It only took a moment, and Sarah rushed up to the desk in a cloud of discarded Post-It notes, papers with neat typed text and scrawled writing and took the books from him.

 

            “In a hurry?” Becker asked, grinning. Sarah was always in a hurry, and almost always late; Lorraine had taken to putting her watch five minutes forward, which prevented her from being irreparably late.

 

            Sarah flashed him a grin. “Yes. Lorraine’s father is staying the night with us. He’s really easygoing, I like him a lot, but...”

 

            “You are abnormally nervous about Lorraine’s family?”

 

            “... Yes.” Sarah looked moderately ashamed, and then rallied. “But then, you’ve spent most of your time at CMU looking like a wet Wednesday.”

 

            “I have not,” Becker said, startled.

 

            Sarah gave him a knowing look. “You so have. Any plans for this evening?”

 

            Becker smiled involuntarily. Jess Parker walked into the glass door with a small, lovesick sigh, then turned as red as her hair and hurried out. “Seeing Dave.”

 

            “Now you don’t look like a wet Wednesday,” Sarah said with satisfaction. “Anyway, got to go, see you tomorrow, byeeeee-”

 

            She fled.

 

            Becker stared after her for a moment, then hurried to the glass doors and flung one open. “I do _not_ look like a wet Wednesday!” he bellowed down the corridor.

 

            Sarah’s voice echoed back at him. “You _so_ do!”

 

            Becker withdrew into the library, grinning and shaking his head. “Bloody woman,” he murmured, then went and picked up his things, closed up the library office, and left before Connor Temple could tackle him for the usual plea for mercy over his fines.

 

            It was quiet outside, and dark, the evening lit only by occasional headlights in the car park and CMU’s lights, which cast orange pools of light that made the puddles and drips of rain look black and oily. It was moderately sinister, as evenings went, but Becker was buoyed up by the knowledge that Dave was waiting for him at the flat and had promised to cook dinner, and his increasing confidence that he could be safe here, that he didn’t have to worry about the unpleasantness he’d crossed the country to avoid. The memory of Greg and the experience of the break-up had eaten away at him like acid for more than a year; it came as an unspeakable relief to know he could distance himself from it and move on.

 

            He had left his car at the far end of the car park. He usually preferred to park a little closer to the building, but Dave had rung him up for some creative distraction that morning, and he’d been later than usual getting in to work, so there had been no other spaces left. His legs carried him towards it on automatic; he’d always had a brilliant memory for where things were. He was generally very observant, too, except when he was thinking about Dave, and it was the remembrance of that phone conversation and Dave’s cheerful voice turning sly and wicked that stopped him from noticing the man standing by his car until he was within speaking distance.

 

            Becker’s car keys fell from nerveless, numb fingers.

 

            The man took a step closer. He had a very familiar face, handsome in a very youthful kind of way, with salt-and-pepper hair falling perfectly over his forehead. Becker knew those blue eyes, that impeccable dark grey wool winter coat and those too-neat-to-be-true jeans. He recognised that oversized blue golf umbrella.

 

            “Alexander?” Greg Watson-Forth said gently.

 

            Becker blinked, and shuddered almost imperceptibly. It had been unseasonably warm for the time of year, the past day or so: he remembered Cutter strolling through CMU and loudly informing the theology lecturer who always looked sideways at him and Stephen that it was the Result of Global Warming and We Are All Going To Die Thanks To Rising Sea Levels, all rs rolled thunderously and angelic troublemaking expression plastered firmly to his face. But Becker was suddenly freezing cold. So cold he couldn’t think. The last time he’d been this cold it was three o’clock in the morning, and he’d left Greg, left the arguments and resentment behind in their flat, and walked out into the cold night air and stood on a bridge for two hours, till his fingernails went blue and his teeth chattered.

 

            “Alexander?” Greg Watson-Forth repeated, and Becker shifted backwards slightly, his head twitching as he half-shook it in unconscious denial. He was getting colder with every word Greg spoke. Seeing Greg had felt like a gun put to his head; hearing him was like the click of the safety-catch going off. “Alexander. I know this is sudden. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I just – when I heard you were here, I _had_ to –”

 

            He stepped forward and kissed Becker, hands curling around Becker’s face. It was supposed to have been passionate, Becker dimly suspected, but he felt like wax, cold and unmoving in Greg’s hands. Greg, as usual, failed to recognise when he wasn’t enjoying himself, and backed away after a few numbing moments, smiling hopefully.

 

            There was nothing Becker could say to that smooth voice, that practised manner, those convincing eyes. Greg would win. The way he always did.

 

            Becker turned and ran.

 

***

 

            Sarah was sitting in Lorraine’s office, eating lunch and whirling absently on a spare office chair while Lorraine typed with one hand and ate with the other.

 

            “Are you sure this – whatever it is - needs doing now?” she asked after a moment, a trifle wistfully.

 

            “Yes,” Lorraine said regretfully, and banged the keyboard as she finished off a sentence and explosively went to a new paragraph. “I’m so sorry, Sarah, she literally dumped it on me at the last minute and it really does have to be done by three o’clock, or Lester...”

 

            “I know,” Sarah said, and managed a particularly virulent spin. Lorraine paused in her typing and looked at her for a long moment, then got up and came over to her, catching her hands and standing over her.

 

            “I am sorry,” she said softly. “And I will make it up to you.”

 

            Sarah relaxed minutely.

 

            “This evening’s all yours. I promise.” Lorraine squeezed Sarah’s hands. “Dad’s gone on to his conference, we’ve got the place to ourselves, everything can wait. I’ll leave the work in the office. We’ll take off at five on the dot. We can do whatever you want.”

 

            “Dinner in that café with the bookshop?” Sarah said hopefully, referring to one of their favourite haunts, which was in fact an eccentric second-hand bookshop that lured its customers in with sandwiches and salads made to order and delectable Victoria sponge and then loaded them down with first editions of obscure Golden Age detective novelists they had had no idea they needed. Sarah and Lorraine were on first-name terms with the owners.

 

            Lorraine smiled. “Absolutely.” She glanced up quickly, just in case Caroline Steel was lurking outside the door watching them through the glass – an unpleasant habit of hers – and then bent her head and kissed Sarah.

 

            “I love you,” Sarah said as they broke apart, soft-eyed and smiling, and Lorraine melted.

           

            “I love you too.”

 

            “More than anything else. Ever.”

 

            “Same.”

 

            Sarah leaned up for another kiss, and the door imploded, swiftly followed by Dave Owen bursting into the room, spotting Sarah and Lorraine, and bursting out again, but not quickly enough to stop himself impacting on Sarah, Lorraine and the chair, all of which were so delicately balanced that they went flying and landed on the floor in a tangled heap.

 

            “Oh God, oh fuck, I’m sorry-”

 

            “Ugh,” Lorraine said, staring up at the ceiling and sucking in deep breaths, strongly tempted to give up on life.

 

            “Just help us up,” Sarah said, for once more patient than Lorraine.

 

            Dave came back into the office, the door still swinging feebly behind him, and sheepishly helped them up. The office chair was a bit wonky, but fortunately Sarah had put her chicken teriyaki down at an earlier stage in the proceedings, or the cleaning ladies would have been having a rather strict word with her.

 

            “Now,” Lorraine said, once more upright and breathing, and having overridden Dave’s medical instincts by pointing out that she could do the simple sums he was giving her in under a second and was perfectly well aware of the date, the current Prime Minister, and the number of fingers he was holding up. “What’s the matter?”

 

            “It’s Beck,” Dave said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and developing a most unaccustomed wet-weekend expression. It looked bizarre on his cheerful, open face. “He... didn’t come round last night. Said he felt ill and didn’t want to inflict himself on me. And he called in sick this morning.”

 

            “So he has the flu,” Lorraine said kindly.

 

            Sarah shook her head. “He looked completely normal when I saw him yesterday afternoon. He was heading out the door. He told me he was seeing you, he looked really happy.”

 

            Dave looked even more depressed. Lorraine was strongly tempted to pat him on the back and utter words like ‘there, there.’

 

            “It’s not just that,” Dave said. “I called him a minute ago, to check in. He said he was OK, except.”

 

            “Except?” Sarah prompted after a moment.

 

            Dave stared over both their heads, took a deep breath, and said: “He said he didn’t want to see me.”

 

            There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

 

            “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s got cold feet,” Sarah said brightly.

 

            “Darling,” Lorraine said, caught between despair and laughter, and squelched the giggle that threatened when Sarah gave her a wide-eyed look. “Right. Let’s start from the beginning and think about this logically. Sarah, you saw Beck when?”

 

            “Quarter to six. Nearly six, maybe?” Sarah said, a little vaguely.

 

            “And he mentioned seeing Dave?”

 

            Sarah nodded. “He smiled. Not even that – his little face, it absolutely lit up, it was adorable.”

 

            Dave looked at his feet.

 

            “And when was he supposed to arrive at your place, Dave?”

 

            “Seven,” Dave answered. “I called him at half-seven.”

 

            “So there’s an hour’s window, in which something must have happened to upset Beck.” Lorraine clapped her hands. “Now all we have to do is work out what that was.”

 

            “I don’t know,” Dave said, staring at his feet again. “He might just have...”

 

            Sarah and Lorraine shared a glance, and Sarah put a hand on Dave’s arm. “Dave. _Dave_. Where’s your common sense? How likely is it that Beck went from thinking you hung the moon and stars to wanting to break it off with you in the space of an hour? Even if that is the case, something’s got to have happened to cause that, and whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fixable.”

 

            Dave hesitated.

 

            “He might be the definition of nervousness,” Sarah persisted. “But he adores you.”

 

            Dave rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I believe you, but...”

 

            The door swung open again, and they all stared at the incomer: Stephen Hart never left the Earth Sciences building if he could possibly help it, except when Helen Cutter was on the premises. And since Helen Cutter was unlikely to be returning to CMU any time soon, they’d been seeing less and less of him in office hours as he returned to his old refuge. He looked vaguely sheepish and typically gorgeous.

 

            “Anyone seen Beck? Tom Ryan’s looking for him, and Nick’s going to say something rude if Ryan keeps sniffing round Earth Sciences.”

 

            “Why would Beck be in Earth Sciences?” Sarah said, sounding baffled. “He’s the librarian, for god’s sake.”

 

            “One of the Evolutionary Zoology students was the last person to see him, apparently. Connor Temple.”

 

            “Where? In the library?” Sarah shook her head. “We already know Beck was there at about six. I was chatting to him.”

 

            Stephen shook his head as well. “No. After that. Temple says he saw him running away from the car park.”

 

            There was an uncomfortable pause.

 

            Dave had gone dead white. “Beck’s car is still in the car park. I saw it this morning.”

 

            “Calm down,” Lorraine said authoritatively. “You spoke to him all of ten minutes ago, Dave. You know he’s upset, but unharmed. If he was physically hurt, _he would have told you_.”

 

            “Connor’s a nosy little bugger,” Stephen hastened to say reassuringly. “If Beck was hurt when he left, Connor would have seen something.”

 

            “Where’s Ryan now?” Dave demanded.

 

            “Poking round the admin offices,” Stephen said.

 

            He didn’t even get to finish the sentence before Dave was out the door.

 

***

 

            “But you didn’t see him,” Ryan said persistently.

 

            Jenny pinched her nose. “No. No, I did not. And I am now ten minutes late for my appointment with Oliver Leek.”

 

            “Forget it,” Ryan said, and hastily back-pedalled when Jenny gave him a look that could have withered a Californian redwood to nothing in two seconds flat. “You need to reschedule, Miss Lewis. No-one has seen Becker since yesterday evening. When last seen he was in a state of considerable distress, and there was someone loitering around these offices asking for him.”

 

            Jenny stared. “And you think this has something to do with me?”

 

            “I think I don’t want to track down Becker’s body in a ditch is what I think.” Ryan thinned his lips. “Do you know him well?”

 

            “Reasonably. Claudia knows him better, he’s part of her little crowd in a way I’m not, but – yes, I know him reasonably well.”

 

            “Then you know he’s insecure, and that he left his last job in a hurry and moved across the country.”

 

            “To get away from someone?” Jenny said, stunned. “I knew some of that.”

 

            “He’s from bloody _Kent_ , Miss Lewis. His CV says he’s lived there, or within easy reach, all his life. Until he came here. Anyone who knows him knows he doesn’t have any friends here outside CMU, and Dave says he never goes back to Kent or talks about friends there.” Ryan shook his head. “It could be nothing, but I don’t like it, it doesn’t feel right. I hope to god he got over whatever spooked him and just went out with Owen last night and is home with a hangover he didn’t want to admit to when he called in sick. There could be a completely innocent explanation.”

 

            “But what if there isn’t?” Jenny said.

 

            Ryan went stone-faced.

 

            They both heard a sharp, fast tread, and turned round; Dave Owen had just turned the corner. He looked focussed and grim.  

 

            Jenny turned back to Ryan quickly. “Who saw this man?”

           

            “Niall Richards. Go and talk to him, I need to -”

 

            “You manage Dave, I’ll handle Niall,” Jenny said. “If there’s a student or staff member in this building who saw either Becker or your stranger, I’ll find them.”

 

            She hurried away, out of the very door the stranger had been lurking around, and headed straight for Engineering.

 

            Niall Richards had an office tucked into a corner, out of the way. It was handy for the labs, and even handier for student-avoidance purposes, so – unlike every other person who ever occupied it – he never, ever complained. His difficult personality did occasionally have some useful quirks, Jenny conceded, and firmly pushed to one side the memory of her encounter with him a couple of weeks ago. She’d made him laugh somehow, and he looked so much nicer when he wasn’t moving through the university like a barracuda among minnows that much of Jenny’s dislike of him had dissipated.

 

            Of course, the moment she knocked on the door she heard him growl “What _now_?” and the dislike reconstituted itself. She pushed the door open.

 

            “Oh,” he said, looking up from his computer. “It’s you.”

 

            Jenny stared at the computer, the tower of which was upside-down on his desk, motherboard exposed, screws and bits and bobs scattered around it, and an open multitool and several screwdrivers lying on the desk; she didn’t notice that his face had lightened when he recognised her, although luckily for him she did register the more welcoming note in his voice. “What are you – never mind, I don’t want to know. It’s about the man you saw around the admin offices last night, asking for Becker. Becker’s now missing.”

 

            Richards’ face twitched in a frown.

 

            “Exactly,” Jenny said, automatically mentally translating this into an expression of concern. “He hasn’t been seen since last night. Now, I don’t remember seeing anyone particularly strange around, but if you could give me a description...” She remembered that Richards hated to be dragged into things against his will; Lorraine had had to have a Word with him at the last Christmas party, and while it had been effective, as Lorraine’s Words generally were, it shouldn’t have been necessary. “I’ll write it down. Then you won’t have to bother with anyone else. I’ll get the word out about whoever it is, circulate the description, I’ll even pass it onto the police if I have to.”

 

            Richards was now frowning properly. “I don’t mind. I know Becker, I like him.”

 

            Jenny was moderately surprised. “You could be a great help, finding our lurker. Could you tell me exactly what happened, though? I’d like to have a record of everything, in case...”  


            She felt slightly sick.

 

            Richards narrowed his eyes. “If it’s any help, Miss Lewis, I don’t think the guy I saw could have done anything much to Becker. I’ve seen Becker in the gym. At a guess, he’s fitter and stronger than the bloke I saw was. He’s definitely taller.” He leaned back and reached for a dog-eared pad of paper and an immaculate biro. “Shall I write it down?”

 

            “Let me,” Jenny said, taking a chair. “Your writing is unbelievably bad.”  


            He grinned and handed over the pad and biro. “It is that.”             

           

            He told her everything he knew about the stranger, measured Yorkshire-tinged voice clear, concise and level, and at the end of fifteen minutes Jenny found herself staring down at a reasonable description of the man and brief notes on the conversation Richards had had with him.

 

            “So basically,” she said, “you drove him up the wall and then slammed the door on him.”

 

            Richards leaned back in his chair, folded his arms and smirked an evil smirk that Jenny was ashamed to admit made him look attractively devious. “No comment.”

 

            Jenny couldn’t stop herself smiling. “You had a lot of fun with that, didn’t you?”

           

            “A bit.” Richards’ green eyes glittered. Then he sat up, and the humour went from his face. “Is it true Becker’s missing?”

 

            “One of Cutter the Nutter’s students saw him running hell for leather away from CMU, and no-one else has seen him since, as far as we know. He’s not at his desk. I don’t know if Ryan had spoken to Dave when I left him, but I did see Dave meet him just as I went off to find you, and it has to be said, Dave did not look happy.”

 

            Richards bit the end of one of his fingers. “Fuck.” He pushed his chair away from his desk and stood up. “Where’s Ryan? I’m not getting any work done anyway, I may as well help try to track down Becker.”

 

            Jenny blinked at him, surprised for more reasons than one. “What about...?” She gestured at the computer. “And – I mean, _why_?”

 

            “If I’d sent that arsehole to the reception or wherever, whatever happened between him and Becker would have been controlled. There would have been witnesses. You can’t sneeze here without someone telling everyone else you’re dying of bird flu.” Richards glanced down at the computer. “As for that piece of shit, I can’t fix it, I need to take it to IT.”

 

            “Oh. Okay. Well, I last saw him in the admin offices.” Jenny tore her sheets of paper from the pad and tucked them away. She had no idea what made her add: “I’m going that way myself, if you were thinking of heading up there now.”

 

***

 

            For the hundredth time, David punched Becker’s number into his phone and put it to his ear, praying that this time, he’d pick it up. He wasn’t really expecting him to, because the last umpteen calls had gone straight to voicemail, but –

 

            “David. _Stop calling me_.”

 

            Becker sounded distressed and angry and David had never heard anything better in his life. “Oh, thank God!”

 

            “...David.”

 

            “I’m sorry, Beck, I’m sorry, it’s just – there’s a fucking arsehole sneaking around CMU, Niall was messing with his head yesterday, he was asking for you – and one of the students saw you running away from the car park - and then you didn’t come round last night and asked me not to – fuck, I’m not making any sense.”

 

            “You’re really not.”

 

            “I was worried,” David said, collapsing into a chair. “Fuck that, present tense. I am worried. Beck, just – just promise me, he didn’t hurt you. Promise me. Because if he did I will kill him, I swear, I –”

 

            “You won’t rest until you’ve seen me, will you,” Becker said, his voice dull.

 

            “No, probably not,” David said, and shut his eyes. “It’s so fucking good to hear you. You have no idea how worried I’ve been. I only just stopped Ryan sending out a search party.”

 

            “Search party?” Becker yelped. “Oh, fuck! Everyone knows?”  


            “Not everyone. Ryan, Sarah, Lorraine, Niall, Hart, Claudia, Jenny – oh. Okay. Well. Almost everyone.” David took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Beck. It looked bad. You weren’t in work, you didn’t call in sick, you stood me up, your car’s still in the car park, that idiot wandering around looking for you, you were seen running like you had the hounds of hell on your tail...”  


            “When you put it like that,” Becker muttered.

 

            “Yeah,” David said, grateful that Becker no longer sounded fit to break up with him for telephone harassment. Even David admitted he would have had a point.

 

            “Look,” Becker said, and David heard a tiny sound that he identified – even through phone line distortion – as Becker licking his lips. He imagined the other man raking his teeth over his full lower lip, brow creased, warm, shadowed brown eyes intent with concentration, and heard him take a very deep, shuddering breath. “Um. Okay. I suppose... I was going to have to explain at some point. And I can’t do it over the phone. David, I know I said – well. Please come over.”

 

            David let out a huge sigh of relief and nervousness. He only hoped he could deal with this in person, and make some kind of dent on whatever was upsetting his boyfriend. And if that dent involved taking the arsehole Niall had met for a short walk off a tall cliff, David would not be complaining. “I’m coming, Beck.”

 

            “Good,” Becker said quietly, and let out a long sigh. “Fuck. What have I let myself in for?”

 

            “I don’t know,” David said, desperately wanting to find Becker and hold him, for Christ’s sake. “I don’t know, but – Beck. I’ll be there. Whatever it is. I’ll help. I promise.”

 

            There was a short pause. “Come over,” Becker said eventually, and cut the call.               

***

 

            “Panic over,” Sarah announced cheerily, sitting down in the refectory with a cup of coffee and handing one to Lorraine with a doting smile. “Dave’s spoken to Beck and he’s going over there, and I’m sure, whatever it is, Dave can fix it.”

 

            “Dave can fix most things,” Lorraine said dryly, returning the smile.

 

            “Mm,” Jenny said, and Lorraine tried and failed not to make anything of the fact that Niall Richards had apparently voluntarily followed her out of his den in the pits of Engineering in order to find out what was going on. “Did he know what was going on?”

 

            Niall Richards shifted slightly, large hands curling around his coffee cup. He looked uncomfortable – he usually did around other people – but his eyes kept flicking back to Jenny, and if Lorraine had to guess, he was hanging around because she was here, and this way he had an excuse to talk to her.

 

            Sarah shook her head. “No. It’s obviously something Beck doesn’t want to explain over the phone.”

 

            “Violent ex?” Jenny hazarded, voice dubious. Lorraine couldn’t blame her. He might be mild-mannered, but Becker was tall, strong, and looked like he could handle anything coming his way. If Lorraine had had to guess, she wouldn’t have labelled him an abuse victim, but – she could be wrong.

 

            Lorraine shivered.

 

            “He was a super-secret Robin Hood figure in Kent, and the cops have finally caught up with him?” Sarah suggested.

 

            There was a pause while everyone else digested that statement.

 

            “That bloke was not a policeman,” Niall said.

 

            “I can’t see Becker as Robin Hood, he’s too wimpy,” Jenny said.

 

            “I think Sarah meant that speculation is useless,” Lorraine said.

 

            Sarah beamed. “It’s almost like you know me, love.”         

 

***

 

            Becker opened the door to Dave almost the second the bell rang. He knew how bad he must look, big dark circles under his eyes, skin grey with exhaustion, hair mussed and falling into his face, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and an old, worn t-shirt – but if he didn’t let Dave in now, he would never do it, and he couldn’t find the will to clean himself up.

 

            “Dave,” he said, rather stiffly.

 

            Dave’s warm, open face, so full of anxiety, lit up. “Oh God. Beck, Hilary, I’ve been so _worried_.”

 

            “Come in,” Becker said, relaxing slightly. It cheered him to think that Dave called him by his first name, didn’t treat Hilary’s name as if it was too awful to be uttered even by his boyfriend.

 

            Dave stepped over the threshold, and Becker shut the door behind him. The other man made a small, abortive gesture, hands reaching out to Becker, and Becker hesitated. He wanted Dave to touch him; he found Dave’s hugs extremely comforting, and every cell of his body cried out for a little comfort, for someone who really cared about him to hold him and look after him a little.

 

            “Please,” he whispered, and Dave pulled his usual trick of reading Becker’s mind and stepped forward and drew Becker into his arms.

 

            Becker almost started to cry right there. He pressed close against Dave, nestled his head against Dave’s, wrapped his arms tightly around Dave’s chest. Dave’s hands were cold, but his core was warm, bursting with heat, and Becker could feel soft lips and a slight scratch of stubble as Dave tipped his head, nudged his face against Becker’s. He didn’t know how long they stood there, but he felt, perhaps, a little better, when Dave’s grip loosened a little and one of his large hands ruffled through Becker’s black hair very tenderly and stroked down his back.

 

            “All right?” Dave murmured.

 

            “Better with you here,” Becker said, truthfully, and felt Dave brighten a trifle.

 

            “Can you tell me about it?” Dave said gently.

 

            “Yes.” Becker swallowed hard. “Yes. That’s why I asked you to come. Come – come through.”

 

             He drew Dave into the kitchen, and automatically made tea and sat down at the table. Dave sat down opposite him, and slid his foot across the empty space between them so that it brushed against Becker’s, a warm, solid, unobtrusive presence, leaving Becker the space to think before he spoke, but giving off calm strength like a glowing lightbulb. Not for the first time, Becker blessed his luck in finding Dave.

 

            “It was Greg,” he blurted out at last. “The man lurking around CMU. It was Greg.”

 

            “Greg,” Dave repeated, a look of approaching horror. “Greg. Your ex. That fucking –”

 

            “Let me,” Becker pleaded, “God, please let me finish. Or I’ll never -”

 

            Dave shook his head roughly. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

 

            “He... I found him waiting for me by my car. He was... he was apologising. Saying sorry. Saying he had to come when he knew I was here – I don’t know how he followed me, he must have... I don’t know.” Becker gritted his teeth, and forced the last few words out. “He kissed me.”

 

            The handle snapped off Dave’s mug, Dave’s knuckles suddenly white with strain. “Shit! I’m sorry, Hilary.”

 

            Becker blinked disbelievingly at the mug for a moment, and then startled himself by chuckling. “That’s all right. You don’t... I just... never mind. It doesn’t matter. In – I really, _really_ don’t care right now. I just...” He put his head in his hands. “I couldn’t win, Dave. I can never win. He always wins. He’s always believed and in the end, I know what he did was wrong and I can shout and rail at him all I like, but everyone believes him. He’s fucked everything up for me since the moment things turned sour. Everything. I had to leave my job because of him, I had to leave my friends behind, I left my mother behind, for God’s sake, my father’s a bastard and if there was any way I could... not leave her behind, but. He made life unbearable for me.”

 

            Dave’s hand slid across the table. Becker determinedly did not touch it.

 

            “What it was – well. He hated it if I spoke to other men, was friends with them, even if they were just colleagues. He was jealous, but he kept acting like it was me who was jealous. He called me, um... Uptight, secretive, and cold. Those were the words.”

 

            “Beck...” Dave breathed.

 

            “Almost done. I swear. Anyway, we had a lot of rows. Because I wanted him to believe I loved him. That was all I wanted. I wanted him to believe I would never have cheated on him, because – I wouldn’t do that to someone. I am – very monogamous.” Becker smiled tightly. “He knew how much it mattered to me, and he went out one night after one of those rows and fucked a student from the university I worked at. Everyone knew. _Everyone_. And everyone thought I was wrong to leave him. Every time he tried to get me back they backed him up. They all told me, every single one of them, it was one mistake, and he was drunk, and...” Becker shook his head. “No. I left. And it made me miserable at first, but then – I’ve been so happy here, Dave. I like this place, and – there’s you. There’s you. And now he’s come here, and... I swear I didn’t invite him, Dave, I didn’t ask him to come here-”

 

            “I know, I know you didn’t – oh, Jesus fucking Christ. I know.” Dave had apparently given up on space; he came round to the other side of the table, sat down next to Becker and dragged Becker half onto his lap, holding him. Feeling slightly embarrassed and childish, but very comforted, Becker leaned against him and let the few tears that had survived a wretched night fall.

 

            Dave swiped them off his cheeks with a gentle, rough-edged thumb, and kissed him. “We’ll get shot of him, Hilary. I promise you. No-one here will believe a word of his fucking poison. Tell you what, we’ll lock him in a room with Niall and Lester, and by the time they’re done with him, well, there won’t be anything left. And then Lorraine can mop him up and send him away with the world’s politest flea in his ear.”

 

            “I don’t want to see him again,” Becker said.

 

            “To be perfectly honest with you, I think you have grounds for a restraining order. But you might not need one.” Dave’s fingers combed through his hair. “Does he know about me? Fucking hell, if I get him alone, Beck, I can’t make any promises that he’ll leave in one piece.”  


            “So I won’t let you be alone with him,” Becker said. Feeling tentatively steadier, he leaned up and kissed Dave. “He doesn’t know. I bolted. I just ran. Because he always wins, Dave. Always. I can’t fight him. I learned not to.”

 

            “He won’t win this one.”

 

            Becker slipped a hand under Dave’s t-shirt and shut his eyes, resting against the other man. Involuntarily, he yawned.

 

            “Are you tired?”

 

            “I haven’t slept.”

 

            “What, at all? Come on.” Dave got up, and helped Becker steady himself as he stood, before walking with him into the bedroom.

 

            Becker practically fell face-first onto his bed, and groaned as he snuggled down. He heard Dave’s laugh and the sound of his shoes and jacket falling to the floor, the creak as Dave sat down on the edge of the bed. “You don’t understand,” Becker moaned into his pillow. “I spent the whole of last night pacing my flat. The neighbours came round to ask if I was all right. I’m so fucking tired I don’t know which way is up.”   

 

            Dave laughed again, and then Becker felt Dave’s body close against his, a protective arm slung over his back. “I didn’t sleep much last night either. Go to sleep, Hilary.”

 

            “Yeah,” Becker agreed, and yawned. He turned onto his side, in order to get closer to Dave. “Dave?”

 

            “Mm?”

 

            “I know it’s taken me a while to say this, and – odd of me to choose now to do so. I suppose. But I love you. I want you to know.”

 

            “God, Hil. I know.” Becker felt Dave’s lips brush his forehead. “I love you, too.”

 

            “And Greg is _history_ ,” Becker growled.

 

            Dave chuckled. “I know that, too.”

 

***

 

            Becker felt apprehensive, approaching CMU the next day. They’d gone to the police station in the morning, and Becker had filed a report about Greg; he’d been worried they wouldn’t take him seriously, and it was true they didn’t seem to think Greg was much of a threat, but Becker didn’t think Greg would hurt him either. He just wanted to have proof on file that Greg had followed him from Kent, something to use later on if Greg kept it up and Becker had to find some more definite way of stopping him. He’d taken Dave out for lunch afterwards and held hands over the table until their food came, and then they’d headed back to CMU.

 

            “You just need a way to get back control,” Dave said, an arm curled around Becker’s waist as they walked through the car park.

 

            “I know,” Becker said, and kissed Dave’s cheek, just because he wanted to and no-one could stop him.

 

            Dave literally beamed. He seemed to be enjoying this more-demonstrative thing, which was fair enough, because Becker was too. It was taking a conscious effort to remember that he could do this stuff, that he was allowed to have what he wanted, but it got easier every time he did it.

 

            Becker slid a hand into Dave’s back pocket, took a deep breath, and reminded himself that he could have this. Dave wasn’t going to pull the rug out from under him just like that, CMU was pretty gay-friendly as workplaces went, he had friends that believed in him even if they thought he was a bit of a wet blanket, and he had been working on not giving a shit about what his father thought for years.

 

            They shifted apart slightly as they headed inside the main building, just to preserve a modicum of professionalism, and separated entirely at the library doors. “See you later?” Becker said.

 

            Dave caught his hand and squeezed it. “Come round to mine?”

 

            Becker found his smile came easily. “I need to hit the gym.”

 

            “So do I. I’ve been lazy. Meet you outside the sports centre at seven?”

 

            Becker nodded. Their fitness routines were almost entirely different, so they tended to occupy different parts of the sports centre, but meeting at seven would give them both time to get in a decent workout and tidy up a bit before heading back to Dave’s. “See you then.”

 

            Becker did not watch Dave down the hallway, tempted though he was; he felt less comfortable without him there, but he was going to have to get used to that. He couldn’t, and shouldn’t, cling to Dave forever. That would only end badly.

 

            Speaking of things that would only end badly, Becker almost collided with Jess Parker, perpetually clueless, colour-blind and Bambi-eyed. “Oh. Hi, Jess.”

 

            “Hi, Becker,” Jess said shyly. “Um, are you okay? You weren’t here yesterday.”

 

            “Fine,” Becker said, a little more curtly than he meant to. He really, really didn’t want to discuss this with the students. God, it was bad enough being mistaken for one: he had nearly lost his temper several weeks previously when a member of staff who failed to recognise him accused Dave of cradle-snatching. Dave assured him that if whatever he’d done wasn’t losing his temper, it was still pretty impressive.  

 

            “Jess, haven’t you got a lecture to be at?” Lorraine said, coming through the library doors.

 

            Jess squeaked and vanished in a cloud of paper and unsuitable shoes.

 

            “Does she have a lecture to be at?” Becker enquired, suspicious.

 

            “No,” Lorraine said serenely, “but I wanted to ask you to order in a couple of books for me, and she was in the way.”

 

            “You’re secretly Machiavelli, aren’t you,” Becker said, taking a seat and logging on to his computer. “What are the books?”

 

            Lorraine told him, and Becker started looking them up. “Is this for your book?”

 

            “Partly that, yes.”

 

            “What’s it on?”

 

            “Modern and historical black markets,” Lorraine said, startling Becker slightly. “It’s a long-term research interest of mine.”

 

            “Right,” Becker said rather weakly, and glanced at the screen. “We can get those for you, no problem.”

 

            “Thanks,” Lorraine smiled, and went away.

 

            Becker ordered the books, made a note on the system, and began to attack his email backlog.

 

            He almost forgot about Greg.

 

 

 

            At about four o’clock, Stephen Hart trailed into the library, closely followed by Dave, both of them being herded by Sarah Page.

 

            Becker stared at the group. “What?”

 

            “Greg turned up,” Dave said informatively. “Lester’s... dealing with him.”

 

            “I don’t know who he is,” Sarah said cheerfully, dragging an armchair over to Becker’s desk, plonking down into it and retrieving two packets of crisps, a smoothie and a box of mini-rolls from her capacious handbag. She shook the smoothie briskly, opened it and drained half the bottle in one go. “But he’s toast.”

 

            Becker was speechless.

 

            “He can’t follow you for the rest of your life, Beck,” Dave said gently.

 

            Stephen said nothing, just pulled up two more chairs, slouched into one, and started to eat a mini-roll in an indecent fashion while staring into space. Becker felt a spike of irritation with him.

 

            “Yes,” Becker said, “but _I_ want to tell him that!”

 

            There was a brief silence, then Stephen, suddenly not so blank and dim-looking, caught Becker’s eye and nodded slightly.

 

            Becker set his jaw and switched his attention, staring Dave down. Everyone knew Stephen had had issues with Helen Cutter, and from what Becker had heard they’d been a hundred times worse than his Greg problems. If Stephen thought it was a good idea to face Greg...

 

            “Do it now,” Stephen said. “Before you get to thinking it would be easier not to. Trust me.”

 

             “Where are they, Dave?” Becker said softly, ignoring Stephen.

 

            Dave’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. Sarah dragged me out of my office before she told me what was going on.”

 

            “Sarah?”

 

            Sarah crossed her eyes and licked strawberry smoothie off the end of her nose. “I don’t know either. Lorraine called me, and I think she knew because she was in a meeting with Lester. Try Lester’s office.”

 

            “Right. Thanks.” Becker looked back down at his boyfriend, sitting in an armchair in front of him and looking profoundly uncomfortable. “Dave? I know what I said. But actually – I do want to tell him to fuck off myself. And then I can, you know, not see him again for the rest of recorded time.”

 

            Dave sighed, and took hold of Becker’s hands and rested his forehead against the backs of them, before kissing the knuckles and releasing them. “Take care of yourself.”

 

            “I will,” Becker said, knowing it was a promise he probably wouldn’t be able to keep, and left.

 

 

            He actually quite liked the deputy vice chancellor, particularly when his sense of humour made one of its blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances – something that happened surprisingly often when Lester was in more informal company. At those times, Becker found himself enjoying sarcasm and wordplay, and completely failing to notice Ryan and Dave rolling their eyes at each other.

 

            On the other hand, Lester was perfectly capable of scaring him shitless. As Becker made his way to Lester’s office, he tried not to think about that.

 

            The door was unlocked, Becker discovered as he knocked perfunctorily and pushed it open without heeding Lester’s peremptory ‘not now!’ call. Greg was sitting in the most uncomfortable chair in the office, looking petrified and small and alone faced with Lester at his elegant ease and Ryan lurking with a sort of solid, subtle menace in the background. Becker felt a savage thrill of satisfaction.

 

            “Mr Becker,” Lester said in bored tones, and Greg looked round with a flash of hope in his face. “I suppose it was too much to hope that you would refrain. We were having a pleasant little _chat_ with Mr Watson-Forth here; do feel free to, ah, pull up a chair and join us.”

 

            “No,” Becker said. “No, that’s all right, deputy vice chancellor. I have things to get on with. Libraries don’t run themselves. I just wanted a quick word with Greg.”

 

            “In private?” Greg asked hopefully, half-rising as if he thought Becker was going to rescue him.

 

            Once, Becker would have done.

 

            “No,” he said. “Everything I have to say to you can be said in public. Greg, I am done with you. I’ve been done with you for years. Go home and stay there. I have a life I love and a boyfriend who loves me, and you aren’t part of anything to do with me any more. I deserve better, and I’ve _got_ better. Back off. You aren’t wanted.”

 

            Greg collapsed rather feebly into his seat. “Alexander...”

 

            “And my name is _Hilary_ ,” Becker said. “Goodbye, Greg. Thank you for your time, deputy vice chancellor, Mr Ryan, it’s appreciated.”

 

            “Any time,” Lester drawled, exquisite boredom on his face. “You know how much I enjoy members of staff irrupting into my office for emotional confrontations.”

 

            “It could be worse,” Becker retorted, “I could be a Cutter,” and left before Lester could lose his temper with him.

 

            Behind him, as the door swung shut, he could hear the sounds of Greg trying to get up and leave.

 

            “I don’t know where you think _you’re_ going,” Lester said languidly, and Becker stifled a laugh as he hurried away.

 

            Job done. Case closed. And Becker felt the same freedom and confidence he had when walking with his hand in Dave’s back pocket and Dave’s arm around his waist, except that this time, he had made it happen – him and no-one else. It was all on him. He didn’t need to rely on Dave to feel like this. Didn’t have to cling to him to feel important, to feel special, to feel worth a second look. Didn’t have to get validation from him to be happy.

 

            But he could have that love and affection, if he wanted it. And Becker did, very much.

 

            Becker smiled.


End file.
